March 30, 2025 "This fellow welcomes sinners"

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

 grace and peace to you

 from the one who comes running with open arms. Amen

Today our lectionary gives us the parable of the prodigal son,

 a story that we have all heard many times

 along with just as many interpretations,

it is such a well-known story

 that even those unfamiliar with the rest of scripture

know what “a prodigal son” is,

 at least they think they do.

 A prodigal son is one who leaves behind family and friends,

who is reckless with money and relationships,

 someone who seeks their own pleasure

until all their resources are gone

and then when they hit rock bottom

they are the one that returns

 to what they originally left behind

 and remarkably they are welcomed back,

 though when they are

they are hung with the label “prodigal”

no one will ever let them or others forget

 that they left in the first place,

even back home they are still the one who left,

 who didn’t deserve to be welcomed back

 but who was anyway.

 And when we think of it like that,

well it doesn’t sound so great,

 it misses the grace that Jesus is trying to convey

in the image of the father rushing out to greet his son,

 who celebrates his return with all the best things

because he loves him,

who tries to convey to his other son that love isn’t earned,

 it just is.

We’ve heard this story before,

how might we hear it with fresh ears?

This time around I was struck by the introduction.

 “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable:

 and in a neat bit of editing

 our lectionary jumps right into the story of the two brothers,

but if you look closely

you’ll see that it has skipped some verses,

 and in fact the parable of the son who comes back

 is the third in a series of three parables

 in response to the grumbling of the Scribes and Pharisees.

This first is the story about the shepherd with 100 sheep

 who upon losing one leaves the other 99

and goes looking for that one until he finds it

 and when he finds it he carries it back to the fold

and throws a celebration for the one that was lost.

And then Jesus tells the story of a woman who has ten pennies,

 and upon discovering that she has lost one

cleans her house top to bottom

 until she finds the coin

and upon finding the coin throws a celebration.

Two stories that fly in the face of human common sense math,

the math that says 99 sheep are more valuable than one sheep

so it is much more worth the shepherd’s time to focus on the 99.

 Would all 100 be better,

 of course

but if you have to make a choice choose the 99.

 Or the math that says,

 with the time spent cleaning the house

 looking for that one penny

 that woman could be off earning multiple pennies.

Is it great to lose a coin?

no

but in the grand scheme of things

 it’s not worth it to go looking for it.

 To the scribes and the pharisees

 the tax collectors and sinners are the sheep and the coin,

 they’ve already written them off as lost,

why are you wasting your time with them Jesus?

They’re not worth much in the grand scheme of things.

No,

 Jesus says,

 that’s not how God works,

God will look for the lost sheep,

the lost coin,

 God will welcome the son

 who to all appearances doesn’t deserve such a welcome

 (and God will still care for the son who stayed home

 and is grumpy about his brother’s return).

No amount of loss is acceptable to God,

God will always rejoice

when one who has been lost is found.

Author Emmy Kegler, in her writing on this chapter of Luke

remarks on the fact that often we approach these parables

 with the sense that somehow it is the sheep and the coin’s fault for getting lost.

 But in reality

 wandering is part of being a sheep,

and they often have good reasons for wandering,

 and the fact that they wander

 is the whole reason for a shepherd in the first place.

A lost sheep is not so much the fault of the sheep

as it is the shepherd.

And coins don’t lose themselves,

for a coin to be lost

 the one handling the coin

must be careless at worst or clumsy at best.

 Kegler wonders too at everything that led up to the younger brother

 demanding his inheritance and leaving home,

what was so intolerable about home and family

that he just had to get away?

a break in relationship as drastic as that

rarely comes about for one reason,

 what was in the father’s mind

when he divided up the inheritance

(something he didn’t have to do)

and let his son go?

  Kegler remarks “The trouble with this metaphor is that God is the shepherd and the woman, and if God was careless with sheep and coin that would mean God was careless with us. Metaphors, in Scripture and elsewhere, do not encompass the whole of reality. God has never been careless with us, but those who claim to speak for God have.” (One Coin Found, 5).

The pharisees and scribes were grumbling,

 “this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,”

 they have already written off those they have labeled sinners

as not worthy

they have let them wander off in the wilds,

roll under a dresser,

take what they can and leave

 and in leaving have left their minds.

Not so with God,

 the shepherd who leaves the 99

to go look for the one who has gotten stuck in a thorn bush

 and needs help getting out,

not so with God,

 the woman who scrubs her house from top to bottom

 looking for that penny that has lost its shine

 from all the dirt that has been piled on it.

 Not so with God,

the father who searches the horizon

 for the one who has left

and recognizes their own even at a great distance.

For those who feel like the one sheep,

 the lost penny,

the exiled brother

one written off as not worth the trouble,

that is not the case with God,

 God is searching for you

scanning the horizon,

running toward us with open arms.

You are loved.

And for those of us that identify with the older brother

 and his self-righteous cries of “that’s not fair”

God says “no it’s not, and I love you too,

I love you so much that I sent my own Son,

for the sake of the self-centered and the self-righteous,

 for the lost and the ones who did the losing,

 and in my Son there is a new creation’

As Paul reminds the Corinthians

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view… if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation”

We are to see everyone as the new creation they are in Christ

and work toward reconciling those relationships that have become off kilter,

and yes that is incredibly difficult,

 on our own impossible even,

but we are not on our own,

 we are part of a community,

the body of Christ

together we care for those that are hard to love,

 who have wandered,

who we have treated carelessly,

and thanks be to God for that

because we ourselves are hard to love,

we wander, feel pushed away, push others away

 and yet God is there

searching the bushes,

cleaning under the shelves,

scanning the horizon,

and celebrating our return

creating us new in Christ each day. Amen

Kegler, Emmy. One Coin Found: How God's Love Stretches to the Margins. Fortress Press. Minneapolis, MN. 2019.